The five best Web pranks pulled by Moot and the 4chan crew

Moot point: Christopher Poole's moniker has been taken out of the running in condo-naming contest (Image: Andrew Dupont)

When Toronto development company Cityzen decided to set up an on-line poll to name a new condo going up at Yonge and Esplanade, it failed to take into account the power of Moot and his Web disciples. As of yesterday, the Toronto condo development was on a fast track to being dubbed “Moot,” the pseudonym of Christopher Poole—on-line prankster and the founder of 4chan.org, an anonymous image-sharing forum. The community of Web-savvy individuals is powerfully coordinated and has a tendency to hijack the results of on-line polls. Moot has been officially disqualified from the condo-naming contest, but the fact that he had about three times as many votes as the second place competitor—the decidedly less interesting “Euphoria Towers” (will there be atomized MDMA in the heating ducts?)—is a testament to 4chan’s influence. Yet this is small peanuts compared to his other exploits. To celebrate the group’s almost-victory on the Esplanade, we’ve rounded up five of 4chan’s most notable on-line pranks.

1. Moot managed to becomeTime magazine’s most influential person of the year in 2009.

2. The slightly built 20-something was enjoying first place in an on-line Victoria’s Secret best body contest before his entry was deemed ineligible. Second place was another facetious entry: the portly game developer Gabe Newell.

4. When Justin Bieber decided to allow the denizens of the Internet to determine his next touring destination, the folks at 4chan ensured he’d go somewhere exotic—North Korea. This isn’t the only time that the group has taken umbrage with the YouTube sensation: last month, they pushed the search term “Justin Bieber syphilis” to the top of Google Trends’ Hot Searches list.

5. 4chan users were responsible for a resurgence of British pop singer Rick Astley by originating the concept of Rickrolling, wherein Internet users are hoaxed into clicking a link that leads to this, now at 25,194,104 views.

As long as there remains the option to be Anonymous, there will always be 4chan. 4chan is a culmination of anything and everything that people would never let known that they like, but have the ability to due to this moniker. Like it or not, it will not go away.

“There is nothing funny or good about 4chan and /b/”
-The whole purpose for /b/ is for lolz, so your first statement is complete crap.

“They publish child porn, racist and anti-Semitic statements & images.”
-So what? It is only posted because it is funny. We have freedom of speech, YOU CAN’T TAKE MY INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AWAY.

“They stir up hatred and are currently harassing an 11 year old girl to the point that she had to obtain police protection.”
-She had it coming. An 11 year old girl on the internet showing off her tits/panties and making videos of hate.. 4chan only targets evil. She is evil. If anything, /b/ is the act of god.

“Its time to put these losers down.”
-Put /b/ down like you put Jesus down, go ahead, your still going to hell. Take away peoples freedom.

“Your publication should be fair and publish real purpose of this web site, its not harmless fun.”
-This publication is very fair. It is only looking at a few things that /b/ delivered on. Your lucky that the publication didn’t have a list of 20 best web pranks pulled by moot.

And lastly, you cannot silence Anon. Even if you/others were able to ban 4chan, Anon will rise up again. Anon is no different than an idea. Once an idea is created, it can never be killed and can only grow stronger. Anon will grow, and Anon will deliver.

The parents of an 11 year old girl should be teaching her the good sense not to attempt to become an Internet celebrity by tarting herself up over webcam, although i doubt they have such reservations about their daughter’s ambitions, seeing as they now have international media attention and are making an appearance or two on morning talk shows.

You’ve written about 4chan like they’re a harmless fun little group of geeks.

4chan posts child porn, underage animation, horrific violence, horrific racism and they take great pride in harassing people who stand up to them….all while they get their lulz at all of the above content and encouraging each other to post MOAR. ( sic)

They are the lowest of the low and you’re friendly little piece that you’ve written is disgusting.

Anonymous is not a specific group, and attacking Anonymous means attacking anybody who does not wish to be know. Anyways From this trend I’ve been noticing attacking 4chan or there users access in some way, even mentioning them is like taking a baseball bat to a beehive Its insane… /b/ is not the only board on 4chan you know, child porn isn’t posted 24-7 on every board in fact many frown upon you and attack you (verbally) if you deviate from what the board is meant to be used for. For example: post /vp/pokemon stuff on /v/video games and you incite massive rage. finally /b/ is like the black sheep of the 4chan it does anything it can to get us in trouble, it even attacks other boards in the site with raids. Personally I think moot should remove /b/ all together, 99% of the bullshit would evaporate. Or i could be wrong and the members would ruin every other 4chan board…

Whenever someone posts child porn they immediately get banned from the site. You’ve probably never seen CP there yourself and your opinions are solely based on what people have told you. They may have told you it was a scary site to go to and although it is on many levels due to the amount of gore, personal harassment, etc, you must realize that all of this content gets permanently deleted after a certain time. The longest something can stay up would be 1 hour, most of the times just 20 minutes.

Also, as the slogan of /b/ says “the content posted here is pure artistic work of fiction and you’ll be a fool if you believe it” or something along those lines, I cannot remember. This may not mean much but it’s true. Original content is probably only found once in an entire day. The rest of the time the content is a rehash of previous events also known as copypasta or a large variety of the same threads (rate me threads, chubby threads, furry threads, you laugh you lose threads, etc).

And note that 4chan isn’t /b/ in its entirety. There are other boards, most of them which are perfectly fine. Think of 4chan as the world. There are good places and there are bad places. /b/ is Mexico.

4chan isn’t just bout upsetting people. 4chan opens up endless possibilities of pranks for the everyday person to join in with. there planned and executed with precision which in my opinion means they should be awarded for there efforts. i mean all they do is make things more interesting in this world. there will always be hate, there will always be pranks and there will alwys be 4chan.

I don’t understand why all the hate is on 4chan I mean just because they post all this negative things. I mean I’m not for anti-christianity, or kiddie porn, or anything like that but so? What makes it different from any other website that has negative posts/information? Facebook has been a source for teen bullying too why isnt it as bad? Or any other website? What makes it different?

Child porn is banned from the site as is all illegal material.
/b/ is a community. It’s a place many go to laugh, cry, get angry, prank people & desensitize themselves to the things in their lives.

It’s where people go to feel a sense of community and understanding in an otherwise lonely world.

And lot’s of people just go there for the lulz.

Also, there’s a difference between racism and racial jokes. Racial is on the topic of race. Racism is being hateful towards a race.

They are a group of individuals who are, generally, genuinely very intelligent.
Yeah a lot of them are a buck of neck-bearded faggots who sit in their mums basement but even they need a community and /b/ is that community.

I do hope you’ve grown up since your post 4 years ago. Now please; Sharpie in Pooper…

I’m going to go through the list and say whether you actually do find it on the website.

child porn
no
bestiality
usually in cartoon form
Nazi & KKK Propoganda
yeah but usually just trolling
sadomasochism
definitely
a wide variety of fetishes
of course
racism
sometimes, usually ignored, but there’s a lot of racial topical jokes, not racism
antisemitism
same as above, just jokes
anti-Islamic
same as above, just jokes
anti-christian
same as above, just jokes
homophobia
and there’s a lot of gay porn on there, both ends of the spectrum (free speech)
intimidation
only bitches who deserve it
torture
only when it’s funny or topical
gore
only when it’s funny or topical
fraud
maybe a couple of individuals but never 4chan or the /b/ board as a whole
harassment
only cunts who deserve it

There you go, I have educated you. Maybe if you actually visited the site and didn’t just listen to FOX News 24/7 then you’d have a much better perspective.